DEMAND FOR FULL-SCALE INVESTIGATION INTO INVOLVEMENT OF STATE SECURITY AGENCY IN STATE OF THE NATION ADDRESS (Member's Statement)

Chairperson, the Minister of State Security is in damage-control mode following not only the signalgate scandal but now the spycable scandal. The Minister is implementing a standard operating procedure when it comes to dealing with scandals, which is the rogue official defence where officials are blamed and then made to walk the plank. Now the Minister wants us to believe that the signal-jamming device, which was only capable of disrupting the signal in this Chamber, was in place to counter threats from a low-flying aircraft or unmanned aerial vehicle. The fact is, nobody believes the Minister, and that is why we need a full-scale investigation into signalgate. However, the real story is that the State Security Agency should not have been involved in the state of the nation address at all.

The threat to disrupt Parliament was not a threat to national security; it was not a hostile act of foreign intervention; it was not terrorism; it was not espionage; it was not an exposure of state security matters; it was not an exposure of state secrets; it was not sabotage; and it was not serious violence and therefore fell outside the mandate of the State Security Agency.

So, in the end, we need to send the Minister a clear message and that message is, "Get the spooks out of domestic politics in South Africa."

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